Regis Resources Limited

Welcome to the Regis Resources Limited quarterly results briefing. All lines will be placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press the star one again. For operator assistance throughout the call, please press star zero. And finally, I would like to advise all participants that this call is being recorded. Thank you. I'd now like to welcome Jim Bayer, Managing Director and CEO to begin the conference. Jim, over to you.

Thanks, Paulie. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us on the Regis Resources March 2023 quarterly update, which looks like it's a very busy morning this morning with a lot of reports coming out, so thanks for joining us. Firstly, I'd note that I am joined here around the table with our CFO, Anthony Rakiki, and also with Stuart Gouler, our COO, along with Ben Goldbloom, Head of Investor Relations. Despite production falling below expectations, we made good progress on our long-term plans during the quarter and we achieved a significant milestone at our growth project at McPhillomys. But first on safety, our LTIFR, lost time injury frequency rate, was steady and well below industry average at 0.6. It goes without saying that in any way the health and wellbeing of our people will always be a priority focus for the company and we are proud of the progress that we've made. The installation of the nine megawatt solar farm at Duketon South is on track and we expect it to be commissioned in the June quarter of this year, so just a couple of months away. And we're looking forward to the first power from the farm as it not only reduces our carbon emissions but it also delivers direct power cost savings through the reduction of diesel fuel that's consumed currently for the DSO mills. Over the last two years, we've invested heavily in growth capital at our operations, totaling nearly $350 million. This investment phase is coming to an end with the declaration of commercial production coming up at Gardenwell Underground at Havana Pit in the June quarter. And with this, we start the transition from investment to cash build. For the March quarter, overall, we produced just under 104,000 ounces of gold at an all-in sustaining of $18.27 Aussie an ounce. Growth capital was $73.5 million. With the lower-than-expected production in March, we adjusted and tightened our FY23 full-year production and increased our AISC guidance to $17.95 to $18.45 an ounce, as was released back on 17 April. The June quarter has seen production rates at Duketon South return to planned rates, while at Duketon North we're seeing the wet weather having an ongoing impact this month. And Stuart will make some comment on that a little bit later. Notwithstanding the impact at Duketon North, we are expecting a lifting gold production in cash generation to finish off this financial year. I'll now hand over to Stuart Guler, who will provide some more information on the operational performance. Thanks, Stuart.

Thanks Jim and good morning everyone. Looking more closely at the operations, Duketon Gold production was lower at approximately 77,000 ounces at an AISC of $1,919 an ounce and Tropicana was also lower at just over 27,000 ounces at an AISC of 1,458. Duketon North had lower production at just under 15,000 ounces at $2,948 an ounce due to wet weather events limiting overall material movement. This was offset by decreasing strip ratios as geotechnical issues from the December quarter were addressed, enabling better access to ore. Access to ore will continue to improve in the June quarter, thereby improving its cash margins. However, we do note that wet weather and its impacts has continued into April, and it's largely affecting mining at our Blenheim pit, which is our single largest high-grade source of ounces at DNO. With DNO in the twilight of its current life, we lack the previous flexibility to mine from alternative sources in these types of events. However, we see this as a timing issue only and don't currently see any further impact on our guidance. The situation will continue to be monitored though. We acknowledge the thin margins realised at Duketon North this year, and whilst the opportunity for potential exploration success remains, along with resource to reserve conversion, A number of scenarios are being evaluated in relation to the value contribution that DNO makes to the Duketon life of mine. Duketon South production was also lower at just under 62,000 ounces at $1,673 an ounce AISC. As a processing plant experienced maintenance events, limiting throughput and ramp up of water delivery from the garden wall underground was slower than we expected. Garden Well Underground is a new mine, and we'd planned for issues associated with ground conditions and dewatering, but ultimately what we provided for and what manifested in the field differed. However, the teams have successfully learned how to deal with and overcome the varying conditions that we've experienced, and we're now moving forward at more acceptable levels of performance in line with their expectations. Pleasingly, Garden Well South Underground delivered greater than 40,000 tonnes in March As this production rate continues into the June quarter, we will declare commercial production at the mine. The production maintenance issues experienced at DSO in the March quarter have since been rectified and we are seeing a much improved performance in the June quarter. Across the Tropicana, Tropicana delivered a lower quarter at slightly more than 27,000 ounces for an AISC of 1,458 as stated previously. The shortfall in gold production was in part driven from underground mines as they experienced issues with frozen stoves and result in lower oil production for the period. Open pit mining was also significantly lower as it was impacted by low fleet availability and productivity issues. The underground production issues have been rectified and we are expecting improved performance in the June quarter. We expect to declare commercial production at the Havana open pit as we see increased ore to mill feed and associated gold production. That's it from me and I'll now hand over to Anthony for the financials.